Hayate the Combat Butler: A Butler Always Takes Care of Loose Ends

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SPOILERS FOR HAYATE THE COMBAT BUTLER

If you remember recently Hayte the Combat Butler went on a hiatus for short time. Kenjiro Hata made sure to mention that the break was not for health reasons or burn out. He just had a project he had to work on. But just before his time off started he mentioned that Hayate was 60% complete.

And then he recently asked his fans on twitter if they had any unresolved plot threads that they absolutely need to make sure get resolved before the manga ends. Reactions to this have generally been mixed whenever I bring it up. Everyone seems to appreciate an author who is dedicated to making sure as many plot threads get tied up in the end but most people also seem a bit worried that it means that the author also clearly does not remember half the things they wrote.

I, being a bit of a fanboy of Hata, I am going to assume the best of him. I have to wonder if he went on hiatus to sit down with his editor and carefully plot things out so they could wrap up all the niggling little details for the end of the series. It would be nice if we were all insane like Eiichiro Oda but I am sure that the weekly serialized schedule makes it easy to forget a plot thread or two. Even the best author and editor team will miss some minor point that an eagle-eyed nerd will remember as if rote.

Hata has repeatedly shown that he embraces social media platforms to interact with fans. You might as well use that encyclopedic database of otaku to see if there is anything important you overlooked in your grand strategy meeting.

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S.W.A.T. Reviews: Spring 2012 Pt. 6

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The premise of these reviews is simple: watch the first episode of a series and then immediately sit down to record a review mini-podcast. The reviews are five- to ten-minutes long and entirely off the cuff. As always we only review new shows (so no sequels or continuations) and try to avoid anything that just looks outright awful. Here are the last two from the new season:

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Listen – Episode 1 of Arashi no Yoru ni from Group TAC with the opening “Friendship Birthday” by Sea☆A.

Listen – Episode 1 of Hyouka from Kyoto Animation with the opening “Reason of Kindness” by Chouchou.

Fate/Zero: Spoilers, Anakin Skywalker Becomes Darth Vader

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SPOILERS FOR FATE/STAY NIGHT AND FATE/ZERO

While there is a good deal of Sayre’s law styled controversy surrounding the Aniblog Tourney, I do find that it can a show you a previously unseen segment of the anime and manga blogosphere if you let it. While perusing sites that are participating in the tournament, I came upon a curious phenomenon surrounding Fate/Zero. There were several blogs that were reviewing Fate/Zero without ever experiencing the original material that Fate/Zero is a prequel to. That sort of blew my mind. But then again, it is not that hard to imagine. The Fate/Stay Night anime came out in 2006 so there is the distinct possibility that a good number of current anime fans have neither watched the original anime or played the visual novel but at the same time are interested in watching Fate/Zero cold. Like many things that fascinate me it is not that the phenomenon is that hard to imagine. What caught my attention was how it changed the way the bloggers looked at the show.

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